Although, in general, the container filling process is known, a number of deficiencies are apparent in the prior art. Most notable of these deficiencies is that the conventional industrial container filling process often results in material spillage. Spillage may be material that is intended be transferred from a first location to a container that does not arrive at its intended destination and/or arrive in the intended positioning. For instance, lettuce leaves delivered through a filler which arrive completely or partially outside of a intended container. As such, use of conventional industrial container fillers often requires downstream personnel to cure cosmetic and functional imperfections resultant from material spillage. Of course, increases of manpower needs, in turn, increase production costs and often slow the rate of production. It would be advantageous to reduce number of additional personnel utilized.
Also, conventional industrial container filler systems often employ downstream tamping systems to depress at least a portion of the material so that a lid may be coupled to the container. In this way, the material does not create an impediment to lid placement. Each downstream additional tamping system increases the overall system footprint. Moreover, each additional piece of machinery caries a cost and a potential for failure. It would be advantageous to reduce the number of these additional downstream mechanical systems.
Often times, material traveling through an industrial container filler may become temporarily caught on a structure within the filler. For instance, lettuce leaves may become adhered to an internal surface of a filler due to a slope of a surface being too flat or surface characteristics of the filler that encourage suction. This results in a production delay as the container filling process is ordinarily paused and steps are taken to remove the caught material and/or accumulated aggregate caught material. This delay increases production costs. It would be advantageous to reduce the number of production delays.
Reduction in distance between the filler bottom and the container minimizes spilling of material outside of the container. Often times if the gap between the container and the filler bottom is too small, material may make contact with the bottom of the filler as the container is advanced on the production line. This often results in spillage of the material which workers must address by hand. It would be advantageous to have a filler system which reduces material spillage.
Moreover, historically, tampers have not been integral to fillers. Optimally, the motion of tamping and/or compression is in a downward direction towards the bottom of a container; however, optimally, the path of a filler is straight down into a container with little impeding the flow of material from a top opening to a bottom opening. As one can appreciate these two goals have been at odds as the tamper can not be positioned directly over the container without impeding the flow of material through a vertical conduit of the filler. Conventional tampers may be been offset and/or configured to tamp in a less than optimal direction, e.g. other than horizontal towards the bottom of a provided container. It would be advantageous to have a filler system which allows for tamping in a direction towards the bottom of the container.
The shape of the tamper may be dependent on the path of motion of the tamping action. For instance, a tamper that approaches the surface of material in a container at an angle other than 90 degrees may comprise a tamping face orientation that is configured in a manner consistent its angle of approach. A goal of tamping is compressing material in a way such that a lid may be coupled to the container without pinching material between a lid to container interface. Thus, tamping in the downward direction, away from a lid to container interface is preferred. It would be advantageous to have a filler system which allows for tamping in a direction towards the bottom of the container.
Moreover, at times material because adhered, such as through suction, to the face of the tamper. This reduces the amount of material that is ultimately deposited into the container and can result in spillage of material outside of a container. For instance, if the material releases from the face of the tamper when a container is not underneath the tamper the material will likely result in spillage onto a conveyer belt and/or into the product filling production floor which is undesirable. It would be advantageous to have a filler system comprising surface features optimized to reduce material becoming adhered to the tamping face.
The present inventors have recognized that filler with integral tamper design would allow a significant increase in productivity with a decrease in system footprint, and production costs, particularly for a process where a container is filled with a material, such as vegetable (e.g. lettuce).